"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Sunday, December 26, 2004

[12/26/2010] "Brandenburg"s for the holidays, Part 1 (continued)

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The Freiburgers give a highly adrenalized performance of the dazzling opening movement of the Second Brandenburg Concerto.

Before we proceed to the whole of the First Brandenburg, I thought we'd pause to listen one more time to the Menuet and Polacca. It's this last movement, by the way, that sets the First Concerto apart from the rest of this set of six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments (Concertos with several instruments) that Bach dedicated and sent to the Margrave of Brandenburg, clearly with the thought of showing off what he could do. (You never knew what a prosperous man of evident good musical taste might wish to make of to make of "what Bach could do." As it is, just by dedicating these concertos to the Margrave, Bach immortalized him.) As the opening work in the set, No. 1 was "supersized" for "wow" effect with this (extra) fourth movement.

One thing to remember in listening to this movement is the Baroque era habit of repeating individual sections and for building structures in A-B-A fashion, which is to say establishing a musical statement, providing a contrasting section, and repeating the original section. This is how a "normal" minuet-and-trio was structured: minuet, trio, repeat of minuet (with all the individual sections repeated). Here Bach expands the idea by working in the polacca with its trio, meanwhile continuing to repeat the minuet section.

In this performance, conducted by the fine violinist Josef Suk (who plays the violin solos in the earlier movements, the ones we're not hearing [ah, breaking development: check the "bonus" section below!]), Trio II -- taken at a deliciously, tantalizingly held-back pace -- comes at 6:05.

NOW WITH A MINIMUM OF FURTHER ADO LET'SPROCEED TO OUR HALF-BRANDENBURG SET

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046

For modern ears, trained to take their Baroque music quaintified into wisps of trivial nothingness, the Casals Brandenburgs probably sound stodgy and heavy-handed. But then, those modern tastes have no use for musical breadth and depth, wisdom and joy and reflection.

If we had popularity ratings for the Brandenburgs, I expect that the Fifth would be a clear winner, and the Second would be runner-up. It's especially known for the heady high-trumpet part. There's so much sensational music packed in that I'm always startled to be reminded how short the piece actually is.

The Britten-conducted set of Brandenburgs, very different from the Casals, also seems to me one of the glories of recording history.

One of life's great mysteries is why the Third Brandenburg has no middle movement, not even in the autograph manuscript, which has just two chords, marked "Adagio." All manner of theories have been advanced, and performance solutions attempted (often involving interpolation of a seemingly compatible Bach movement). It's possible that the composer intended some sort of keyboard improvisation here, or that he simply didn't intend there to be a "middle" movement.

I mentioned in connection with our hearing of Vivaldi that was crazy for Italian music generally (and Vivaldi in particular). I thought we might hear an Italian performance of this strings-only concerto -- written with three violin, viola, and cello parts in the first movement, but only violins and violas in the last, where the cellos are assigned to churn along with the continuo part.

i. Allegroii. Adagio (two embellished chords); iii.Allegro

I Musici. Philips, recorded c1964

BONUS: A MORE "AUTHENTIC" FIRST BRANDENBURG

I don't think there's a "right" answer to the question of "authenticity" in Baroque performance. I do feel pretty strongly, though, that the notion that "more authentic," in terms of instruments and performance practices, automatically means "musically superior" is far more ridiculously untrue than any of its proponents imagine -- but then, these are people who tend not to be start with a great deal of imagination. That said, I think it's certainly valuable, especially in music of this inexhaustible richness, to hear a variety of approaches.

Okay, well, maybe one more performance of the First Brandenburg. I tantalized you above by pointing out that conductor Josef Suk plays the violin solos in the earlier movements, the ones we didn't hear, so I thought it would be only fair to let you hear the whole concerto.

We'll get there eventually, if not next week. Obviously we need to cover the remaining three Brandenburg Concertos, and I'm thinking that at that time perhaps it would be interesting to dip into the world of still-older-style Bach performance.